In 4 years of playing, I have only felt the need to post on these forums once or twice, though I read them often. Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point where I feel that I myself am the last hope for trying to make the right people understand, so here is my case:
Right now, the game is in a dire state of emergency. Every server is being ruined by an exponentially increasing number of players (not just adena sellers) running complex, gamebreaking programs; they dominate the economy, the olympiad, and everything else that makes this game fun. You don't even know how my heart sinks when I see groups of players using automated software in the most popular areas such as hellbound, ruining my only chance to make money and compete.
By now you are thinking: "We already know this." Yes, you may, but I just want to put some perspective on other games in the MMO market. There is a game called "Tibia" that suffered the same problem with cheaters to the point where the game was almost destroyed (even worse than L2 now). Even though the developers waited way too long and lost thousands of valued customers - the people who build a game's community and reputation - they eventually realized that they had to stop the botting or the game would crumble. They did some quick brainstorming, developed a plan, and within only 1-2 months, put it into action. The result: the player base is EXTREMELY happy, thousands of people who had quit rejoined, and they did the right thing not only for the name of the company but the sake of the game. (www.tibia.com for the game, you can see on the front page the most recent news articles about what happened.)
I have other examples as well, such as Ragnarok Online which started with many bots but has been almost pristine for 3+ years due to vigilant banning at a point similar to L2 now. You should also note that once this was done, much less work was required to keep bots out because few thought they could get away with it - great for players and GMs!
My point is, these games are older than Lineage 2 and just watch what getting rid of the cheaters did! Even many cheaters admitted themselves they were happy, because they only cheated in the first place to be able to compete with others. Did revenue for the companies go down? In the short run, the gaming companies lost a small amount of revenue from banning accounts. HOWEVER, in the long run, they have gained and will continue to gain thousands of other customers (and the company will have a better reputation as a result).
I have read all of the Lineage II newsletters, interviews, etc. by Omega and Spam and although I like what I hear, I am just not seeing anything. I believe I am the most active anti-bot in the game, spending a few hours a day - precious time, experience, and money - doing what I can to help the server. The bots that I and many others have reported hundreds of times are still there and proud of it - a terrible blow to the efforts of me and others. The complexity of the programs some of them use makes it impossible for even my sacrificed perma-red character to clean areas, I really wish you could have seen what these bots were doing to exploit the game.
Do some bots get banned? Sure, a few do, but by the time they are gone, 100 more have taken their place. What we need is a much stronger effort to take them out, and even if only 25% are banned, the other 75% will get scared and stop. I have seen this work exceptionally well and it is for the benefit of both players and company.
So please, Spam, Kinslon, Omega, and everyone else of the GM team (Harris, Adam, Scott, and everyone else - sorry I cannot remember all your names), do what is right for the good people who enjoy the product you deliver. Lineage II is by far the best game on the market, if not ever, and we really need to save it before it is too late. We love what you do, and I think you owe it to us to really put all your effort to helping us out - we the legit players who have built your game since the beginning, unlike the others who have only contributed to destroying it! We have heard you speak, and now we are on our last straw waiting for your action. The length of this post and the thought I put into it should really indicate how I and others feel.
In 4 years of playing, I have only felt the need to post on these forums once or twice, though I read them often. Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point where I feel that I myself am the last hope for trying to make the right people understand, so here is my case:
Right now, the game is in a dire state of emergency. Every server is being ruined by an exponentially increasing number of players (not just adena sellers) running complex, gamebreaking programs; they dominate the economy, the olympiad, and everything else that makes this game fun. You don't even know how my heart sinks when I see groups of players using automated software in the most popular areas such as hellbound, ruining my only chance to make money and compete.
By now you are thinking: "We already know this." Yes, you may, but I just want to put some perspective on other games in the MMO market. There is a game called "Tibia" that suffered the same problem with cheaters to the point where the game was almost destroyed (even worse than L2 now). Even though the developers waited way too long and lost thousands of valued customers - the people who build a game's community and reputation - they eventually realized that they had to stop the botting or the game would crumble. They did some quick brainstorming, developed a plan, and within only 1-2 months, put it into action. The result: the player base is EXTREMELY happy, thousands of people who had quit rejoined, and they did the right thing not only for the name of the company but the sake of the game. (www.tibia.com for the game, you can see on the front page the most recent news articles about what happened.)
I have other examples as well, such as Ragnarok Online which started with many bots but has been almost pristine for 3+ years due to vigilant banning at a point similar to L2 now. You should also note that once this was done, much less work was required to keep bots out because few thought they could get away with it - great for players and GMs!
My point is, these games are older than Lineage 2 and just watch what getting rid of the cheaters did! Even many cheaters admitted themselves they were happy, because they only cheated in the first place to be able to compete with others. Did revenue for the companies go down? In the short run, the gaming companies lost a small amount of revenue from banning accounts. HOWEVER, in the long run, they have gained and will continue to gain thousands of other customers (and the company will have a better reputation as a result).
I have read all of the Lineage II newsletters, interviews, etc. by Omega and Spam and although I like what I hear, I am just not seeing anything. I believe I am the most active anti-bot in the game, spending a few hours a day - precious time, experience, and money - doing what I can to help the server. The bots that I and many others have reported hundreds of times are still there and proud of it - a terrible blow to the efforts of me and others. The complexity of the programs some of them use makes it impossible for even my sacrificed perma-red character to clean areas, I really wish you could have seen what these bots were doing to exploit the game.
Do some bots get banned? Sure, a few do, but by the time they are gone, 100 more have taken their place. What we need is a much stronger effort to take them out, and even if only 25% are banned, the other 75% will get scared and stop. I have seen this work exceptionally well and it is for the benefit of both players and company.
So please, Spam, Kinslon, Omega, and everyone else of the GM team (Harris, Adam, Scott, and everyone else - sorry I cannot remember all your names), do what is right for the good people who enjoy the product you deliver. Lineage II is by far the best game on the market, if not ever, and we really need to save it before it is too late. We love what you do, and I think you owe it to us to really put all your effort to helping us out - we the legit players who have built your game since the beginning, unlike the others who have only contributed to destroying it! We have heard you speak, and now we are on our last straw waiting for your action. The length of this post and the thought I put into it should really indicate how I and others feel.
BUT! Do you support bans of buffpet support?! Because if you do not, YOU ARE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!
If you think your buffpet is "legit" and does not contribute to the total problem, You are... in err!
BUT! Do you support bans of buffpet support?! Because if you do not, YOU ARE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!
If you think your buffpet is "legit" and does not contribute to the total problem, You are... in err!
Idiots like you are the root of the problem. Get over your QQ rants of boxed buffers, they aren't illegal, and they aren't breaking the rules. You should be banned just for your shear stupidity and ignorance.
BUT! Do you support bans of buffpet support?! Because if you do not, YOU ARE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!
If you think your buffpet is "legit" and does not contribute to the total problem, You are... in err!
It's legit as long as it's within the EULA. and as far as I know, boxed buffers don't break it(some of them do, but for different reasons). Not to mention nearly everybody has one(or multiple) now. I don't think L2 NA/EU will survive for long if everybody unsubs their support box(es)
Signing petition. it may be pointless but so is reporting bots and i do that almost every time i play. Its just the principle of the thing.
Would be nice to think i could play in seige and oly with a level playing field instead of with toons who can see all my gear specs and my level. Or even that they have to click a **** key to use potions instead of having it all automatic so they can concentrate on skills. Won't even go into the so obvious healer/buffer bots behind em.
Any fool who can't tell the diff between a bot controled 2 box and a one person controling 2 boxes is not worth arguing with. They don't have the brain cells to understand the conversation. I know the diff, cause both my characters die when the crap hits the fan and botters survive under a flurry of pots and heals.
I obviously agree with the spirit of the OP--i expect mostly everyone would.
But I don't have enough information to know if paying GM's to run around with a ban hammer is the correct path.
The focus of the OP is that in-game GM's are the way to stop the 3rd party stuff. I don't know that to be true.
I'm not a computer person, but it would seem to me some types of sniffer programs could run from the server side to constantly weed out this blight of 3rd party programs.
I just get the feeling that 4-5 GM's in game would be like trying to bail a leaking ship with a bucket...
I know one player who for absolute certain has never run a bot program or other 3rd party program....me.
I suspect a number of others who play as I do because over the years I've seen their progress mirror mine (which would be pathetic progress if they were cheating--lol).
For the most part, the huge majority of L2 players cheat. So much so that it's my belief that a large number of players are completely UNABLE (let along unwilling) to play this game straight. Sometimes I wonder if the devs truly eliminated all opportunity to run 3rd party programs--just how many players "could" remain?
Not using that as any argument not to find a way--I'd rather have few players than the nonsense happening now.
More GM's though? I'm just not sure that's a significant part of the eventual answer. It would seem some type of coding into the game could do that function more reliably.
I disagree with you Piro, you take this crusade against users using multiple accounts on a ridiculous scale, but know that I cancel my SE account now, just tired of having to support myself because the game is lacking and NCSoft won't do a god **** thing about it, they don't give a frell while some still pay for their subscriptions. I'll try to manage without it or simply quit :).
NCSoft has a choice to resuscitate this game or let it go. This game is about as alive as L1, sure there are people playing it, but in the grand scheme of things they are an insignificant minority.
My question is, why after 5 years of L2 isn't there an automatic bot detection tool? Why is NC still relying solely on player reports? L2 need bans on a massive scale and you're never going to get that without a detection tool.
That there isn't one just tells me that NC doesn't care sufficiently, or isn't willing to try to prevent botting.
I totally agree with the sentiment of the thread originator. I've been playing L2 for close to 4 years as well, and find that as you get to end game, the pressure to use 3rd party app to spam CP pots, or buy adena to get better equip can be intense.
I won't compare this game to others, and how they dealt with the problem, nor add to the 'deal with it' crap usually spouted by the 13 yr old crowd, who probably use daddy's credit card to get their gear.
Botting in this game has mainly 2 purposes - make real world money for the greedy SOB's who will take advantage of any situation or person to feed their greed, or normal players who need ( or want) to grind quickly (usually a paid service or a bought account ).
NC tried to assist the low and mid grade levels with some changes that made getting C and B gear easier, and getting spell books and SA's. It was a good attempt, and works on the surface, but it also removed some of the better adena making functions for those same mid level people. I have a warehouse full of life stones 8-10, that is essentially useless now. Crafting ( D/C/B) does not make the money it used to. There are other ways to make adena, but they still require seed money to get started.
The introduction of cubics for enchants made an impact on the economy for a short bit, but had the inverse effect of driving up the prices of crystals in some places. This also effectively removed the enchant purchasing from Trader of Mammon as a good initial source of income for new players, with the sudden glut of enchants on the market. I have hundreds of D and C enchants that do not move like they used to.
If I wanted to, I could simply whip out my credit card and buy a bil or two adena, and get what I need, but there would be no satisfaction with that. If I wanted to, I could run the risk of account ban by spamming CP pots or whatever with the 3rd party app du jour, but any fight I win would not feel the same. I play to have fun, not to be the most uber pvp'r in the game. The reality is, I win some, lose some, and I usually enjoy the win knowing I did it clean. Not to say that every one who beats me is dirty, usually just better - so what - we both had fun.
Want to get rid of the bot problem, then the solution is simple - stop buying adena, or paying for power levelling. If we remove the profit for the sellers, then they will get their real world money elsewhere, and we will have significantly reduced the number of bots on the servers.
There will always be bots for the other purpose, it's just human nature.
Thank you to those with relevant replies. Just a few points I'd like to emphasize:
1) We CANNOT have the mentality "bots are going to be there forever, deal with it". I cited several examples where games that were in the same state as Lineage decided to remove bots, and they have been healthy and thriving ever since. Bottom line: bots do NOT have to be there.
2) I'd really like for the developers/GMs to communicate with us players. I'm pretty sure 100% of everyone who plays Lineage knows about bots and the problems they cause; it would be great if someone could make an official post or even homepage news article addressing the current situation. If we do not hear anything from you, more and more players will turn to botting (NCSOFT DOES NOT GAIN REVENUE FROM LEGIT PLAYERS TURNING TO BOTTING. Stopping botting at its root - and doing so fast - is the best way to address this problem).
3) As I have played Lineage since the beginning and am very perceptive to the bots on my server, I have observed that there are certain periods ("mass bannings"), usually right before a chronicle. I BEG YOU, do not wait until Gracia Final to start banning proactively - the distance between legit players and bots increases every day and the game will be ruined by that time if nothing is done!
4) There are two options: remove cheaters or not. The hundreds of people botting as I speak, all of whom I reported a combined thousand times, have not received any sort of penalty. What kind of message do you think this sends to others? WE CANNOT HANG ON THIS THREAD ANY LONGER. You have told us you will help us with the new bot button, etc. but since then, the bot situation has gotten MUCH worse. If I have to play another half an year or so before the next chronicle is released with proportionally more bots every week (it was like this before Gracia part 2 - a terrible time to play L2), I am just going to quit; I am sure there are hundreds out there who feel the same.
Please understand the seriousness of this thread, NC. We are counting on you!
there are only 2 unlimited raw resources in our universe, stupidity and greed. the only way to keep the price of crude greed down, is to have a ton of stupidity on-hand, just keep farming it like crazy until the demand is reduced...
Want to get rid of the bot problem, then the solution is simple - stop buying adena, or paying for power levelling. If we remove the profit for the sellers, then they will get their real world money elsewhere, and we will have significantly reduced the number of bots on the servers.
There will always be bots for the other purpose, it's just human nature.
im fairly certain that if you was able to check who ran the "farmer" trains you would find in most cases a player in some of the major clans on your servers. so just not buying wont work really.
1) We CANNOT have the mentality "bots are going to be there forever, deal with it". I cited several examples where games that were in the same state as Lineage decided to remove bots, and they have been healthy and thriving ever since. Bottom line: bots do NOT have to be there.
2) I'd really like for the developers/GMs to communicate with us players. I'm pretty sure 100% of everyone who plays Lineage knows about bots and the problems they cause; it would be great if someone could make an official post or even homepage news article addressing the current situation. If we do not hear anything from you, more and more players will turn to botting (NCSOFT DOES NOT GAIN REVENUE FROM LEGIT PLAYERS TURNING TO BOTTING. Stopping botting at its root - and doing so fast - is the best way to address this problem).
Not to sound too sympathetic towards bots, I dislike them as much as anyone else, but I don't agree here.
1) The games you cited are in no way similar to L2. Free mmo's and subscription based mmo's have drastically different trends in playerbase growth. Free mmo's are constantly gaining players, many continue to increase their playerbase five or more years after release and show no sign of slowing down. It's not at all unusual for a free mmo to see the kind of resurgence you described
Subscription based mmo's peak at 2-3 years and then show a steady decline in players. No subscription based mmo has ever seen a significant boost in subscription numbers after they began to decline. WoW is the only game to break the trend in that it never started to decline. L2 is following the path of every other subscription based mmo, major changes in other subscription based games have failed to bring about the type of resurgence you expect, I see no reason why L2 would be any different.
While banning all the bots may bring back some legit players, history of subscription based mmo's suggests active accounts would continue to decrease, not to mention the huge loss in accounts from the bannings themselves.
2) I agree it would be nice to see the GMs communicating a little bit more. The developers on the other hand are all Korean, we're third class citizens for this game and you're never going to see them communicating actively with the community. NCNA is perfectly aware of the botting problem and I'm sure NC Korea is as well. However, the problem simply doesn't exist in Korea. There's very little incentive to try to fix the problem at the dev level when it doesn't affect 95% of the players.
Whether or not NCNA as a company would be better off without the bots (I think they would see revenues decrease per point 1), NC Korea wouldn't see any noticeable difference at all because this is a localized problem. Until that changes, don't expect any real change in how they handle bots.
Could they ban all the bots, absolutely, it's a relatively simple process to automate detection of the vast majority of bots through manipulating the client/server communication protocols. Guaranteed no false positives and you could catch every bot logging in within a several hour window. But any real solution to the problem requires dev support, which NCNA isn't likely to get. GMs running around collecting evidence and banning bots one at a time is a nice idea, but it's just not enough to address the problem.
I literally can't do my 3rd class Varka quest because all the mobs are killed within seconds of spawning. It's that bad and I've only got around 10 captain badges in 4-5 buff rounds due to the massive amount of bots, bots in which I've reported for weeks now.
What a piece of **** system. Can we make a island and ship them over there to do all their evil deeds instead of allowing them to clog up and interfere with IMPORTANT quest areas? I'm seriously getting ****** off here because this is wasting my **** time.
I literally can't do my 3rd class Varka quest because all the mobs are killed within seconds of spawning. It's that bad and I've only got around 10 captain badges in 4-5 buff rounds due to the massive amount of bots, bots in which I've reported for weeks now.
What a piece of **** system. Can we make a island and ship them over there to do all their evil deeds instead of allowing them to clog up and interfere with IMPORTANT quest areas? I'm seriously getting ****** off here because this is wasting my **** time.
Razah? I had no prob doing ally lvl 2. Or do you mean the Raid Boss?
ah and I agree with the op, it's getting ******ed here.. could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the NA/Euro servers have more chars (bots) at 84+ then those in Korea by now and guess how that was achieved..
Not raids just normal mobs. the soldiers are a breeze but I usually have troubles with the captain badges and it was pretty jam-packed in their this morning. the fact that pretty much every bot group there now will KS your mobs makes it even worse because they can out-damage you easily. If a Varka spawns you better kill it fast before 2 full groups comes and takes your item.
Not raids just normal mobs. the soldiers are a breeze but I usually have troubles with the captain badges and it was pretty jam-packed in their this morning. the fact that pretty much every bot group there now will KS your mobs makes it even worse because they can out-damage you easily. If a Varka spawns you better kill it fast before 2 full groups comes and takes your item.
I can try give you a hand tonight.. or maybe tomorrow night.
Drop me a mail.. I never remember how your name is written. ;)
Omg... to the OP... you are sooo right!! It's just not getting fun anymore... and GabrielK... can you tell me how can I cancel an account? I want to stop paying for my second account but don't want the character to be deleted. It's just no good anymore since I rather get along with the few live legit buffers I know than paying extra cash just to go to a place where bots take all the mob. So please, a little help there.
I recently lost items coz an NC error and got no support... well, I just don't feel like keep paying extra cash for an alt account that doesnt really do much. You know I level up faste hitting the mob the botters train do? Ofc, I get like 3k or 4k exp per mob, but the speed they kill is awesome... ofc it's not goo to do varkas quest, but good to fool around a while. So please, a little help on doing that is very appreciated ^^
This is my 3rd attempt at playing lineage 2. I am dissapointed they still havent found a
solid solution for bots and cheaters. I have left 2 times before because of this.
Maybe the gms are doing something but i havent seen anything. Maybe they just dont have
enough manpower to really address the problem. If thats the case they should ask
help from the community. Why not ask lets say 100 trustworthy lineage players to act as assistants
to help them out.
Second accounts are great. They can net you more money simply by letting you have an afk shop open 24/7 (you will always sell more during the day than at night, unless your on a foreign server). Having buffer toons is always the biggest reason to have one but it's a good enough reason. Making new toons is really simple as getting them to level 40 takes virtually no time at all.
It's very easy to duo Kamaloka 23, 26, 33, and 36 with 2 characters. The first 3 can be done with 2 DD's with hp pots for emergencies. 36 can be a bit tricky without a second healer type toon although it's doable. I did it with a low-level DE dagger as the sole damage source at level 34 or so and upwards. Leveling this way costs you 20 minutes or so a day, and I get an almost free dagger toon for scouting areas, war-tags, going perma-red on bot PK's, or bot wartag full xp-loss griefing (love it when they use auto-res).
If this character becomes too much of a problem, remove all equipment, delete and make a new one. It's very very easy to make at least C grade toons these days...
My box account is one of the best investments I have made in this game.
EDIT: On topic. If NC Soft NA wanted to fix the bot problem more permenantly, they could have done. I could silenty sweep through the game in 1 hour on all servers and make my presence felt enough (with announcements in-game and on forum after the fact) that people would seriously be deterred. The fact that they have not done so or something similar says it all. It's obviously not a priority for them after around half a decade...
This is my 3rd attempt at playing lineage 2. I am dissapointed they still havent found a
solid solution for bots and cheaters. I have left 2 times before because of this.
Maybe the gms are doing something but i havent seen anything. Maybe they just dont have
enough manpower to really address the problem. If thats the case they should ask
help from the community. Why not ask lets say 100 trustworthy lineage players to act as assistants
to help them out.
Korea is doing it wrong. They put trojans in all of their games to "control" them, but it's on the wrong side of the game. It's a failure.
We can only wish one day a divine inspiration gives them the idea to make a server-side bot preventing application.
Excerpt from a serverside patch on another game (I won't give the name, it's not an ad) :
Contents of this update:
- Detecting exploits / cheats. We remind you that any person found to be cheating will be banned immediately and without warning.
Contents of this update:
- Detecting exploits / cheats. We remind you that any person found to be cheating will be banned immediately and without warning.
It's possible.
You just have to look at some of those illegal servers.. some of them really autoban bots.
Punkbuster, as I've said on many posts, would solve all of the problems.
Takes screenshots of gameplay and sends them to the master server. In this case, NC. BF2 already has automated systems to 'read' these screenshots looking for anomolies such as overlays or aimbots. Once these are flagged the player is banned from that sever.
Bots wouldn't be able to send a screenshot. Oh dear.
But if NCSoft adds something like a checker to server.. that sends a random package.. and has to wait for another random reply.. that only the non-hacked L2 client could send.. it would be a way to find out a bot.
After that.. add a procedure to the database to say that account_xxx is banned..and send an email to the gm team, for them to kick player.
Punkbuster, as I've said on many posts, would solve all of the problems.
Takes screenshots of gameplay and sends them to the master server. In this case, NC. BF2 already has automated systems to 'read' these screenshots looking for anomolies such as overlays or aimbots. Once these are flagged the player is banned from that sever.
Bots wouldn't be able to send a screenshot. Oh dear.
Punkbuster has many many flaws. I used to admin in BF2 when I still actively played it and even then PB only caught the really stupid hackers, like the people who sent back black screenshots or amusing little messages. PB is seriously lacking in their efforts to keep up with the hacker problem, even a lot of today's Aimbots fool PB and commander hacks are so rampant its almost on every server now (100's of jeeps falling from the sky).
However PB would be a good start if they decided to add it to L2.
Ok apparently you are Koreans.
What do you think Gameguard do?
Punkbuster is born failure because, again, it's client-side. In the hands of the evil. If you start with "better than nothing", all you get is Gameguards-like.
PunkBuster is ok, but imagine the server load that needs to read several thousen screen shots every now and then not to mention the network load.
It works on small servers with 100 or so players, but when you add it to an L2 server that processes the location and actions of several tens of thousen mobs, npc's, quests, chat, petitions, players (hit, hp, mp, dmg, craft, crit etc etc etc) it just won't work unless they put up one dedicated punkbuster server for each game server they have.
nc soft will never ban [automated players] the way you (and I) want them to be.
[automated players] are part of their revenue stream now.
they only ban enough so that it looks like they are doing something that we players can see, but are not mass banning them all.
I mean HELLO, THEY KNOW IF YOU ARE USING A [automated players] PROGRAM, they just choose not to ban those people. Why do you think NC Soft is too stupid to know how to check for [automated players], but other "hosts" of the software are not? Guess what. NC Soft knows all about it.
The koreans and their underlings in Texas, they don't see 9 [automated players] in a catacomb, they see $15 * 9 per month.
If they ban 2 out of that 9, there is a good chance that 2 new accounts will be purchased.
Anyways, get used to the [automated players], or play a different game. For the life left in Lineage 2, they will not be mass banning all the [automated players], it would totally cripple whats left of NC Soft NA.
No company wants to put themselves out of business, but people that keep making these posts seem to think NC Soft wants to go bankrupt so just you don't have to slaughter a [automated players] train to take a room.
Your comment is right, but wrong at the same time. But hey, If ppl is dumb enough to give their money for free and play only 4 days a month... let them be. But NC... I dunno, you should create a "bot island" (maybe call it Souless Shrine) somewhere between the new Gracia continent and Aden. A place where botters can go there and gain always 100 exp per mob (only 5x mob) and no drops (not even adena). But let them ONLY be there. When a botter is detected outside that place IMMEDIATE BAN for him since now they have their own place to CHEAT. That way they will get their comfortable game, still be paying money for their accounts, and the rest of the normal legit players won't be affected by them. It's the way to go NC... create competition between botters and they must have to buy more accounts to create a more survivable party to exp in their own place... Put things simpler ^^ If bots win all the time, give them their place. (Also, let that shrine be a small place with few mobs and long respawn, so they steal mob from each other and know how we feel when we try to exp and bots keep stealing our mob).
That will solve ALL of our problems and put things even between legit player and botters.
Your comment is right, but wrong at the same time. But hey, If ppl is dumb enough to give their money for free and play only 4 days a month... let them be. But NC... I dunno, you should create a "bot island" (maybe call it Souless Shrine) somewhere between the new Gracia continent and Aden. A place where botters can go there and gain always 100 exp per mob (only 5x mob) and no drops (not even adena). But let them ONLY be there. When a botter is detected outside that place IMMEDIATE BAN for him since now they have their own place to CHEAT. That way they will get their comfortable game, still be paying money for their accounts, and the rest of the normal legit players won't be affected by them. It's the way to go NC... create competition between botters and they must have to buy more accounts to create a more survivable party to exp in their own place... Put things simpler ^^ If bots win all the time, give them their place. (Also, let that shrine be a small place with few mobs and long respawn, so they steal mob from each other and know how we feel when we try to exp and bots keep stealing our mob).
That will solve ALL of our problems and put things even between legit player and botters.
No, the way to solve most of the problems, would be to have NC Soft sell adena for real world $$$$
Then if you ever see bot trains, you would know they are run by players, in which case NC Soft could start banning them, as long as they are making money by selling adena lol.
Lol, that's crazy... I was referring to botter problem, not ebayers... beside NC by selling adena would ruin the in-game market COMPLETELY FOREVER. ^^ I vote for the Souless Island ^^ to take care of Bots... ebayers will stop doing it after adena hits a reaaaaally high price. Say yes to Souless Shrine!!! XD that way a legit player would eve nlevel up faster than a bot, but if they don't want to play what they pay, let them bot in that place.
It goes hand in hand. That's the point. You don't need a huge bot train to get levels. However a huge bot train nets you more adena to sell. This is not hard to work out, stop sounding like you only started playing a few months ago.
... and to this coward...
That's exactly why boxes shouldn't be allowed. Paying more to get more advantages is for F2P, not P2P.
... If you have conviction in your views you won't send private messages like a ******* moron. you'll post your views for all to see and read instead of being a soulless piece of trash.
If NC doesn't give a crap about making the game less box friendly, why the hell should I? I hate having to box, it slows my gaming down and just annoys me that I'd rather box myself than play with an SE who doesn't know how to use heals or buffs properly (Hi I'm a mage/fighter. I need both please. Don't make me have to tell you every buff round you freaking auto-follow automaton...)
A bought advantage is exactly that. I wrote this a long time ago, it's not news to me. Now I am buying my advantage like the rest of the **** universe. So go ** yourself...
First: LordRiot, please edit your post. I do not want this thread to derail into a flamefest or get locked because of the insults / language.
To keep it short, I'm just going to add two things:
1) NC should really focus on the more "threatening" bots first. These include those who monopolize popular exping and moneymaking spots, like Varka, IOP, and Hellbound. These popular places should really be swept often (I have noticed a lot of bots disappear from Varka a few months ago, but some new ones are back), as bots in these areas threaten the game far more than bots anywhere else.
2) I believe GMs should get on the servers live again, just like a few months ago. It has a great affect on botters, and if done more often and coupled with bans, we should see much progress with very little effort. GMs are part of the $15/month we pay for, and taking this extra effort to appear in-game and support us more often goes a long way.
There is nothing more I can do in-game to combat the bots. Their programs are too complex (they force log when my perma red enters within a certain radius), we cannot train them, and they now often fight back and/or bring higher levels. Bottom line: we need GMs.
I think all the live players should deactivate their accounts for 1 month in protest to the lack of support we get in the game. Hit em where it hurts.
It will never happen, but in EverQuest thousands of people would deactivate their accounts in protest, and they almost always got positive respose to it.
If you are still playing, you don't really deserve to complain about anything. at. all.
The only thing that counts is money to NCSoft. When you can hurt their revenue, then they will start listening.
I will also add my 5 cents to this discussion. (Sorry, but I haven't read all the posts :D ).
Well I totally agree with this topic autor.
It's true that bots are huge problem at the moment and they may be a totally enormous problem in the future. NCSoft shouldn't ignore all the bot reports they receive, as they do now (I've been reporting some botting parties and players with nicks like "JI7664jh7gtT" a lot of times and I see them still running around). It's not a offence, but it's a fact.
Also I have heard that NCSoft forces all their powers to ban bots in Aion, but in my opinion - banning bots in L2 may be done in the same time as banning them in Aion.
Yesterday I had funny adventure with bots in witch cata. After my party PKed all of them, they were lying dead there around 2 hours until their owner came back. He told a lot of ridiculous things, like "I will make you all banned", "I'm GM, you will get ban in few min" and "You will never get room in cata/necro for exping, I will take care about it". So in this point - a lot of botters think that they do right think and playing legit is kind of dishonour and bannable offense. Funny.
Also I have been in academy of one of biggest polish clans on Franz and they all were botting, what's more, they were forcing new members to use bot if they want to exp with those higher lvled players. I had a lot of agrues with them about it and they really think it's a right thing to use bot. I heard funny arguments from them that legit playing is ******ed, like: got families and they can't exping in a legit way, also they said that getting 78lvl legit is impossible thing to do. I could do nothing about their attitude, so I left their clan. But come on, every online game takes time, so if you haven't got it, you should play from time to time or just install some single player game. Stupid excuses. Simple: botting = cheating, cheating = bannable offense. So you can put all your excuses deep in your ....
1) NC should really focus on the more "threatening" bots first. These include those who monopolize popular exping and moneymaking spots, like Varka, IOP, and Hellbound. These popular places should really be swept often (I have noticed a lot of bots disappear from Varka a few months ago, but some new ones are back), as bots in these areas threaten the game far more than bots anywhere else.
I agree with this thought, but I take exception with your location based definition of "threatening bots". Yes, those are the most annoying on an everyday basis but they don't meet my idea of "threatening bots".
The bots that are the most threatening are the heroes. They disrupt the most fun and unique aspects of the game, sieges and Olympiad, by botting to levels that are impossible in the time frame for legit players. Then they roll into your castle, tearing up your defenses and usher in a soulless clan to take the castle. Worse yet they insult you and your friends for being "awful at L2" while their client clan scribes.
There is no way for the legit to defend against the soulless.
For this reason and this reason alone, the game is doomed unless NCSoft acts.
You might not think "its too bad that there are unbeatable bots running around", but I can tell you that the game is losing many more players because of these morons than any farmers taking too many xp spots. Longtime players and all around good people leave the game because the hard work and fun of 2-3 years is completely voided by the lolbot getting to lvl 83 in a few months of 24/7 "play".
i agree that heroes should be the first ones banned
ppl should be afraid of glowing for the simple fact that NC will make them prime targets for their first bans
FFXI report how many bots or illegal players were banned per week , thats actually nice somehow .
Lineage 2 shouldmake the same , then the players would actually start believing that they do something and stop posting threads about it :)
Actually, I think Square-Enix's manner of dealing with botters/rmt in FFXI should be the bar other MMOs are held to.
To put it plainly: They kick *** and don't think twice about it.
For a time, FFXI's economy was a mess. Prices on items went up by a factor of 20-30 times, if not more. Items that were 2 million gil skyrocketed up to over 30-40 mil in some cases. Why? RMT running rampant, too much money flooding the market and, thus, insane inflation taking place. It was driving existing players from the game in disgust, and turned away new players who found they could barely afford even the lowest level gear.
Where other companies have either looked away completely or done barely anything to deal with it, beyond saying "we don't like it, it's bad", SE stepped up and tackled it head-on.
They created a "Task Force" - a team of people whose entire purpose is to track down botting/hacking/exploiting and/or anything related to RMT and then deal with them. They aren't merely GM's wearing multiple-hats. Their entire job is the combatting RMT and related activities.
And they don't do so in some super-secretive manner, either. Every month they report how many accounts were banned, with a break down of how many were banned for what specific activity. They report how much ill-gotten gil was removed from the economy.
They also release a separate report, showing a graph chart of the levels of different activity relative to their efforts, they discuss what they went after, what they're tracking next and so forth. Further, they take questions from the community about RMT/botting/etc and answer them directly.
They do this every month. Without fail. No vague "yes, we're dealing with them, but no, we can't tell what we're doing or how many were banned" (which, in my experience, means they're doing squat). The Task Force have complete accountability to the playerbase.
On a parallel track, SE has made changes to the game that counters the RMT's activities. They've changed the drop status of certain high-demand items that were monopolized, making them worthless for botters/RMT to go after because they can't sell them anyway.
To help in combating fish-botting, they introduced a new mob to the game - a Goblin Bounty Hunter. They are goblins of a level relative to the area they're in, but move faster and hit harder. All they do is patrol shorelines of beaches, rivers, lakes, etc. If a fish-bot is there doing their "afk" thing... they're gonna be killed. Once they were implemented, almost literally overnight, the fishbots were gone, save for a few groups who found spots just outside the goblins' pathing; though SE deals with them anyway. First time I've ever seen people actually *cheering on* the mobs in that game.
The result? Within a few months of the Task Force being implemented, the economy came back down to earth... in fact, prices are now lower on most items than they were even when the game first came out. An item I bought at 450k when I first started playing (about 6 years ago), went up to over 3 million when it was at its worst. That same item is now going for 80-100k. And that's a lesser example of the effect it's had.
This is why no one will ever tell me again that RMT doesn't affect a game's economy, and that combating it won't help. And many have tried to make that argument (in favor of RMT, of course). SE have proven, and continue to prove, quite the opposite.
On a different but similar note of how they deal with hackers/cheaters...
Recently they banned, I believe, over 400 and suspended 500+ other accounts - a few of which were players regarded as the "best in the game", across all servers. They were exploiting a dupe in one of the end-game areas. SE caught on, checked the back-logs to find out who did it... and.. .bam... They were gone. No if's, and's or buts.
The result? In all its years running, FFXI remains steady at ~500k players, year after year. SE acknowledges the harmful effect RMT, hacking and cheating has on the game - and on their playerbase. They take it seriously and they deal with it.
So, though I know FFXI is one of those MMOs that many can't stand (it's kinda like L2 in that regard - you either love it or hate it), I think a lot can be learned from the way they have chosen to react to it. They'll never be rid of RMT completely, but they have certainly made a dent. I know they drove at least a few companies out of the game since they started the Task Force.
If you like cats that picture might bring you a modicum of joy when taken at face value. If however you love that cat so much, yet simultaneously are unwilling to look beyond its flaws(color, size, the fact that it is only a picture) then that cat could potentially drive you insane. You could spend your days and nights thinking of what could be. You could fixate on how fluffy it would feel and how cute the pur would be if only that picture of a cat was the real cat and it was yours. If only...
Enjoy what you can about the kitty. It's been the same cat for five years. It will never get any fluffier. It has always had fleas and the vet has no intention of ever treating it for fleas no matter how many times they swear that they will. Just enjoy the cat for what it is.
I am an addict of the game, but I must agree with the originator of the thread, if NCSoft dont react he will loose the legit hardcore player. Legit player start to have problem to find good spot (high level) and the bot behave like the owns the games.
I agree with this thought, but I take exception with your location based definition of "threatening bots". Yes, those are the most annoying on an everyday basis but they don't meet my idea of "threatening bots".
The bots that are the most threatening are the heroes. They disrupt the most fun and unique aspects of the game, sieges and Olympiad, by botting to levels that are impossible in the time frame for legit players. Then they roll into your castle, tearing up your defenses and usher in a soulless clan to take the castle. Worse yet they insult you and your friends for being "awful at L2" while their client clan scribes.
There is no way for the legit to defend against the soulless.
For this reason and this reason alone, the game is doomed unless NCSoft acts.
You might not think "its too bad that there are unbeatable bots running around", but I can tell you that the game is losing many more players because of these morons than any farmers taking too many xp spots. Longtime players and all around good people leave the game because the hard work and fun of 2-3 years is completely voided by the lolbot getting to lvl 83 in a few months of 24/7 "play".
Its not the farmers, its the jackholes.Botting can't possibly be faster than normal exp. It's just constant. If you ever watch a bot group you'll see all the stupid things they do, like go for a single close mob rather than a grouping of mobs a few feet further away.
Now this is not saying botting is ok :p It would definitely be faster for the family father with a job, but the no-life teenagers could level faster than bots normally if they wanted to.
Yup.. Sniffer does much more damage than the usual bot.
The sniffer is unaviodable, every major game has this type info avilable, either officially or unofficially. Whether it's good or not can be debated. But with the abysmal quality of information on this official website, those other websites are bound to appear. If they weren't there it would mean the game was dead.
i agree that heroes should be the first ones banned
ppl should be afraid of glowing for the simple fact that NC will make them prime targets for their first bans
This is without a doubt one of the best things I've seen regarding bans. Most companies would just say "X bans occured" but I like that SE put atleast some details at what it has done for the community. I've never understood why a company is so scared to publish names of those who broke the EULA.
Companies should even take it a bit further and analyze log files for bot teams. As someone who's had to do the Sin Eater quest a few times for killing bot trains, I would love to see some of the controllers banned. We've all killed a bot train before just to notice them running around 3 minutes later. They obviously got rezzed by someone. Or you get attacked by X person in X clan. I'd like to see bannings taken further to include these people as well.
This is without a doubt one of the best things I've seen regarding bans. Most companies would just say "X bans occured" but I like that SE put atleast some details at what it has done for the community. I've never understood why a company is so scared to publish names of those who broke the EULA.
Companies should even take it a bit further and analyze log files for bot teams. As someone who's had to do the Sin Eater quest a few times for killing bot trains, I would love to see some of the controllers banned. We've all killed a bot train before just to notice them running around 3 minutes later. They obviously got rezzed by someone. Or you get attacked by X person in X clan. I'd like to see bannings taken further to include these people as well.
Indeed. They have complete accountability to the subscribers.
If you look at the new systems they're putting in place in the other report linked, you'll see they are now going after those who buy gil as well as those farming and selling it.
Gotta love the name of the app, too.. "RMT-PWNER V1.337"